First day in Chiang Mai, why not see a movie?

Chiang Mai Travel Blog

We were up bright and early to catch our flight at 8am and by 11am we were in Chiang Mai. I had been reading through the Lonely Planet guide and saw that Julies Guesthouse seemed to be the place to be so we caught a Tuk-Tuk into town from the airport and got him to drop us off at Julies. Now I had heard that it was really tough to get a room at Julies but luckily we got there at the right time cus we took the last 2 rooms they had available. Again Milky, Nagle and I would be sharing a triple room and Sean and Bernie would be sharing the double.

After getting all checked in and stuff we went to a local restaurant and got some food and then explored around for a bit before deciding to maybe go see a temple or two. When we started talking to one of the Tuk-Tuk drivers by our hostel he informed us that it was already to late to go to the temple as it was going to be closing soon but that he could take us in the morning if we wanted. I could tell that something wasn’t right about this Tuk-Tuk driver but Milky hit it right on the head when he blatantly asked if he was drunk. Sure enough the driver answered without hesitation that it was his birthday and that he had been drinking all day! Since we couldn’t go to the temple though, we decided to go to a mall close by and after some negotiating with the driver we managed to get him to take us to the mall for free in exchange that we‘d let him take us to the big temple on the mountain in the morning for $3 each(he started at $1 each to go to the mall and $4 each to the temple). Now I know what you’re thinking, why would you get a drunk tuk-tuk driver tot take you anywhere? Well we figured with the crazy drivers in Asia, we were just as safe going with him than any other tuk-tuk driver around, plus his brother was riding in the front seat too so we figured it was safe enough. I must admit that the driver was pretty damn hilarious and we got some really funny videos of him when he was telling us about the big temple. As we expected we got to the mall without any hiccups and didn’t pay a penny to get there as we had negotiated with the driver, all we had to do was meet him in the morning at 10am by Julies to take us to the big temple.

We spent a good hour or so shopping around in the mall before deciding to see a movie at the theatre inside the mall. There were about 5 movies playing but we decided on “The Happening” since it looked like the best option and since most of us were in the mood for a scary movie. One thing we were told by an American couple was that we have to make sure to stand during the opening credits when it says “Please pay homage to the King”. I guess a week earlier a tourist was arrested for not standing up during that part so we made sure we didn’t follow in his footsteps. The movie was in English with Thai subtitles and most of us thought it was a pretty good movie although there were a few really bad actors that made a few parts laughable rather than scary. After the movie we went back to Julies but then were told about the night bazaar where there’s a big market and food so caught a tuk-tuk for $1 and walked the streets there for a bit. Unfortunately since it was already 11:30pm most of the stalls were already closing don so we didn’t really get to do any shopping but we did manage to get some food and decided that we’d come back tomorrow and see the market a little earlier in the night. We went home around 12:30am and basically went right to bed so we would have no issues getting up in the morning to go to the temple.